Time Marches On
by HeavyweightMaleAntagonist
Summary: Guldo gets a second chance to correct his mistakes after getting told the events of the future from an alternate reality version of himself. Will he be able to make it as a solo villain without the rest of the Ginyu Force backing him up?
1. Chance of a Lifetime

The Ginyu Force were off at a bar on one of Frieza's resort planets, celebrating their latest victory from having near effortlessly conquered yet another planet to add to Frieza's collection. Burter noticed Guldo just having some caffeinated drink and offered him a beer. "Come on, Guldo. Enjoy yourself for once."

Guldo tried to keep a straight face, but subconsciously rolled the eyes on the side of his head. "My body can't tolerate that stuff, I'm not a ten foot giant like you." He had already made his preference abundantly clear before.

Recoome laughed at him after taking a swig from his glass. Despite his bulky body, it was already clear he was getting drunk. "That's not all your body can't tolerate. You almost actually got hurt on that job somehow!"

Ginyu pat Guldo on the shoulder. "Now, now. Guldo is a very valuable asset to our team. He has a wide array of unique talents."

Guldo was glad to get validation from somebody and smirked, glaring at Recoome. "Yeah. Just because I can't blow people up as easy as you, I can stop time and freeze people in place."

Ginyu chuckled nervously. "Heh, well, there's that too. More importantly, however, you're the only one who can complete our team pose! You're so small and green! You're the perfect fit to complete our choreography!"

Recoome, the most avid poser of the team besides the captain, still wasn't satisfied. "He's so fat and out of shape he can barely pose though. Weren't there any other midgets we could've got? I think there was one with a higher power level than his!"

Ginyu shrugged. "I suppose there was another…But he was blue and that would just be redundant with Burter, wouldn't it?"

Recoome nodded. "Yeah, I guess all Guldo has to do is just stand there anyway to make the pose work. He makes the rest of us look better."

Guldo had always hated the group's poses and thought they were silly, aside from being very impractical in the face of combat. He knew his size and skin color had been a factor, but was extremely offended when it had come out that this was the primary reason for him being picked. "Look, I can do more than just pose! You want to talk about 'redundancy?' We don't need three people whose job description all consists of the same thing. I contribute something unique, I can stun people so the rest of you can finish them off. If you like the spotlight so much, you should enjoy me giving you the chance to kill people yourselves!"

Recoome still wasn't convinced. "Who cares? We don't need any help. We're so strong we can just kill everybody with no effort. We don't need you to stun people when we're so fast nobody can escape from us anyway!"

Hearing the word 'fast' mentioned, Burter had to immediately chime in. "Yeah, I'm the fastest guy in the universe after all. Nobody's going to escape my speed."

Guldo groaned. "What's going to happen when we fight somebody that actually gives you trouble? At that point you're going to need my help. Three guys all around the same power level aren't going to do much. You don't have anything to set yourselves apart like I do."

Burter had thought Recoome was being a little harsh on Guldo previously, but at this point he thought Guldo was stepping out of line. "Hey now, don't lump me in with them like that! I'm super unique! My speed means I'm way faster than Recoome and Jeice!"

Everyone in the group knew Burter was incredibly insecure about his speed, given he was slower than both Ginyu and Frieza. Ginyu humored Burter and let his friend keep the title, deliberately holding himself back in battle to be slower to not burst Burter's bubble. Guldo gave Burter a cocky smirk. "You know…I can stop time. Everyone else is at a total standstill and can't move at all. Technically, -I- am the fastest in the universe."

Before Guldo finished the sentence, Burter casually punched him across the room before he could react, instantly getting back into his seat and sipping his beer as he let out a big laugh. "Ooohhh, why didn't you see that coming, you time stopping speed demon you?" The rest of the force laughed along with him as Guldo struggled to get up from the force of the blow. He'd been punched in his leftmost gigantic eye in the side of his head. He eventually got up, mumbling under his breath as he begrudgingly took back his seat.

Ginyu tried to console Guldo. "Look, Guldo, if you're so concerned about practicality, I wouldn't need any of you at all. I'm stronger than all of you put together, so just focus on your poses more. Those are what need work."

This only made Guldo angrier. "I could've gone and been one of Frieza's right hand men if I'd wanted to. I could beat Zarbon and Dodoria any time of the week. I turned that position down specifically for this job!"

Jeice was starting to get tired of this. "You still yappin' after Burter punched your face in? Frieza wouldn't want somebody with a power level of 10K next to him all the time."

"If I've told you once I've told you a thousand times, my power level-"

Jeice spoke over Guldo and finished his sentence for him. "Yeah yeah your power level doesn't take into account your psychic powers and you're soooo much stronger than the rest of us. Just give it a rest already, will ya? Nobody cares. We were tryin' to have a nice little celebration here but you always gotta go and ruin the fun, ya little wanker."

"Remind me what it is you do again, Jeice? Besides do that big combination attack with Burter. Burter is, after all, the fastest man who has ever lived-"

Burter interrupted Guldo. "Or ever will live!"

Guldo could barely hold back a chuckle at Burter's insecurity, giving a smirk before continuing. "Anyway, Burter is more useful on his own. You're more like, Burter's wingman. A supportive fighter rather than the main show, like I am." Guldo didn't actually believe Burter was any different from the rest of them, but played along with that enough to try to make a different point. He wasn't eager to get punched in the face again, he was still feeling the pain in his eye from the last one.

"Oi, don't compare me to the likes of you, Guldo. Don't even pretend. I'm the second in command of the Ginyu Force after all!"

"Why is that, anyway?"

Jeice grit his teeth. "Are you seriously gonna tell me it should be you?"

Guldo knew he had to pit the other members against each other to try to get anywhere with these people. He had to take the focus off himself. "Oh no no no, of course not! But Recoome's ultimate attack is so strong he can destroy planets, and he easily kills the most people of any of us. I think he should be second in command."

While Recoome was just as egotistical as any of them, he hadn't really thought about Jeice's rank before. "Huh, yeah. Why IS Jeice the second in command?" He asked Ginyu directly, expecting some kind of answer. Jeice also glared at the captain, expecting him to finally shut Guldo up.

Ginyu scratched the back of his head and looked at the ceiling, desperately trying to avoid the question. Truth be told, the reason was seniority, though all of the members besides Guldo had joined the force at roughly the same time anyway. "Well, ah, you see…"

Guldo took further advantage of the situation to push this further. "Aside from Recoome being the second strongest of us in battle, he also has the best poses of us by far! He does more than just pose before the fight, he poses DURING the fight. I mean, if that's not dedication, I don't know what is!" Guldo could barely hold himself back from lacing his voice with sarcasm, given the posing if anything constantly left Recoome open to being attacked.

Recoome nodded in agreement. "Yeah, you're right, Guldo! I should be second in command! My poses are way better than Jeice's!"

Guldo was going to try to push this as far as it could go. He wanted to drag someone else down with him. "Yes, yes, and he should be below Burter also! Jeice is far from the fastest in the universe!"

Ginyu didn't know what to say and was struggling to come up with a response. Finally, someone showed interest in somebody other than themselves when Burter spoke up to come to his friend's defense. "Look, Guldo. Even if everything you said about Jeice was true, which it's not, at least he's not a little conniving asshole like you trying to pit us against each other. If you're gonna call me insecure about my speed, then why don't you stop trying to compensate so hard?"

Jeice was appreciative he could at least count on somebody to step in, and quickly took the chance to change the topic back to insulting Guldo. "I mean, he's got a lot of compensatin' to do, Burter. I called him a wanker but I don't think he's got much of anything down there."

Recoome laughed stupidly at the joke, being a fan of low brow humor. "Yeah, I bet the only way Guldo could get action would be if he used his time stop! No way any chick would ever want to do it with him!"

While Guldo disagreed with everything else that had been said, this one was more or less true and stung more than the rest, not that he was going to let them see that. Still, he had no real comeback. "Yes yes, hilarious." He looked on in boredom and zoned out from the rest of what they said, taking his leave before the rest of them. While he had full confidence in his ability to best Zarbon and Dodoria, he had been humiliated by Vegeta directly in front of Frieza, which would leave a pretty terrible impression on him. Vegeta was a mere Saiyan, so it's unlikely Frieza would even entertain Guldo's offer. At this point, though, he just wanted people to finally respect him. He wanted people to suck up to him like he'd had to do to others, he was tired of being on the bottom. While it had gotten to the point where he regularly got in jabs at the other Ginyu Force members, he'd always get shot down and put back into his place in the hierarchy before long.

* * *

Guldo was in his usual quarters on the resort Frieza planet, relaxing in a 5 star hotel next to a large beach. The majority of the planet's original inhabitants had long since been killed outside of a handful made into slaves for the VIP guests allowed to come, such as the Ginyu Force. This kind of life was the main reason he continued to stay in the Ginyu Force despite the fact he loathed the lot of them. Guldo was far from the nicest person to the slaves, threatening them with death if they so much as didn't prepare his food exactly the way he wanted it. Since joining the force, he had killed so many people he was desensitized to it, and only acknowledged people in his personal life and those with higher power levels as "people."

Guldo's larger left eye had swollen up into a black eye from Burter's punch in the bar, and he was in the middle of applying some eye drops into it when he eventually got a call from room service. He was agitated that they'd interrupted him and blamed it on them despite them having no way to know what he was doing. "Yes? Did you get in more chili for my burgers yet?"

"Not yet I'm afraid, it's on its way. However, there was somebody here to see you, Guldo. A man by the named of Gurd. He claims to be your grandpa. Do you want to see him?"

Guldo had thought his grandpa had died of old age recently, but he was curious enough he wasn't going to disallow it. "How did he get a pass to be on this planet? Whoever he is, send him in. If he's an imposter, I'll kill him for daring to impersonate one of my relatives. In that likely event, I'll need you to clean up my room of his body afterwards. I'll tell you when that happens."

The voice on the other end was a bit shaken, but wasn't going to respond with anything other than an affirmative response. "Yes, of course! I'll send him right in."

When 'Gurd' came to the door, it was largely like looking into a mirror for Guldo. He had the same build, though was very old and wrinkled, and slightly less fat. Guldo immediately recognized him as not being his grandpa. "You've got 10 seconds to tell me why I shouldn't just kill you for-"

The other man was quick to put his hands up. "Relax, Guldo. That was just a story for everyone else. I fully intend on being honest with you. Sit down and get comfy, because there's a lot to explain." The other man took a seat with little to no hesitation, being strangely familiar with the room.

Guldo continued to stand, irritated. "Who do you think you are? Show some respect! You can't just waltz in like you own the place!"

"That's just the thing. I do own the place. I know this will be difficult to accept, but I'm you, from the future." He used time stop to appear in several various places in the room to demonstrate his ability, holding his breath before coughing and hacking due to his old age.

Guldo was puzzled and wanted more proof than this, but before he could even ask his future self was savvy enough to speak up. "Yes, I know this is sudden. But trust me, I can prove it. You just got that black eye from daring to challenge the oh so sensitive Burter on his speed, right?" He paused and smirked. "It's true, by the way. We -are- far faster than he could ever hope to be."

Guldo was still not totally convinced but was curious enough he was going to start asking questions. "How did you even get back here? I can stop time, not go back in time."

"You have a lot more potential than even you realize. I had to spend nearly a lifetime of training to make my ability powerful enough to go back, but I've finally mastered it. I don't know exactly how it works, I was halfway expecting a paradox when I came back to meet you. From what I was told by Cell in hell, though, this should just be another split timeline. This is just an alternate universe from where I came from."

"In…In hell? What do you mean, in hell?!"

"It might shock you, but it turns out mercilessly killing people doesn't send you to heaven."

"Well yeah, that goes without saying. But why did I die? You…You just died of old age, right?"

The elder shook his head. "I grew old within hell. If I hadn't come to intervene, you wouldn't have all that much longer to live. I'm here to prevent your death."

"Wouldn't that stop you from existing?"

"Like I said, it's a split timeline. The fact we're even able to talk means we're entirely separate people. Up until this point in our lives, though, we went through the same experiences."

Most of the timeline theory was going over Guldo's head. "Fine, whatever! You're the expert. I'll take your word for it. More importantly, how do I die?"

"The rest of the Ginyu Force, along with us, are tasked with going to a planet called Namek to get the Dragonballs. We're in the middle of fighting some weaklings when Vegeta spontaneously comes behind us and decapitates us."

"Vegeta? Seriously, VEGETA?! He's so weak, how could he possibly-"

"Yes, yes, that's what I thought at the time. He had gotten stronger, though even with that power boost I'd have been able to defeat him. The point is, he's a dirty fighter. He took the chance to kill us while we were distracted."

"So all we have to do is kill him first, right? That shouldn't be so hard."

The elder laughed. "Oh, it's a lot more complicated than that. After we're killed by Vegeta, some long lost Saiyan not in Frieza's army called Goku shows up and kills the rest of the force. He even goes so far as to kill Frieza himself."

Guldo stared at him in disbelief. "Okay, I'd gone along with what you'd said up until now, but that's just stupid. You're losing me. Only Vegeta and two others survived the destruction of the Saiyan homeworld. Saiyans are a super weak race. If there's a guy that strong, what do you expect me to do to stop it anyway?"

"Saiyans are deceptively powerful, there's a reason Frieza blew up their planet. For perspective, in hell, Raditz claimed he was Goku's brother. Even Raditz could potentially become powerful enough to defeat Frieza. They have some bizarre ability called 'Zenkai' where if they get into a near death experience, their power level goes through a permanent massive increase."

"And how did they never figure this out before?"

"Because they're a bunch of idiots who only fight people that they can easily beat. You know how strong people in Frieza's army are. The rest of the Ginyus went on about how they don't need someone like us to support them when they can kill someone so easily themselves…And that's exactly why they died. Hell, if we had teamed up properly, Ginyu and I might've stood a chance against Goku. The other three were useless."

Guldo groaned. "Saiyan biology is so stupid. I'd have probably blown the planet up too in Frieza's position. What's the plan from here?"

"I should've gone back far enough in time that Goku and Vegeta should still be at their weakest. Namek has Dragonballs that can grant three wishes, while Earth has Dragonballs that can grant one wish. Vegeta should be going to earth around this time to fight Goku for Earth's Dragonballs, and we need to stop them and get there first to use it for ourselves. It'll also be our chance for revenge for what they did to us."

"Sounds like a good plan. Should we prepare before we head back? Maybe you could teach me your time travel technique?"

"That would take ages. I'm lucky it worked out as well as it did. Even without me there to help you, you should be more than powerful enough to defeat Vegeta and Goku in this state before they get the Dragonballs. We need to get going as soon as possible, there's no time for any burgers."

"Just as well, this dump is out of chili anyway." Guldo didn't entirely trust this other version of himself, and had thoughts he might attempt to betray him. He considered just using all of the knowledge he had just got and killing him right there on the spot like he'd said he would to the slaves. The elder Guldo would probably want to waste a wish on returning to his youth before he died of old age. It was obvious the other Guldo would probably croak over soon, given he struggled to walk and instead just flew around to travel more easily. "What exactly are you proposing I use the wish for, anyway?"

"There's a lot of limitations on what does and doesn't work. We can't wish to become more powerful than or to effect people more powerful than the dragon, which includes just about everyone. My proposal is simple...I've had a long, long time to think about it. We're going to wish our race had an unlimited lung capacity so that we can stop time indefinitely."

Guldo gave him a big smirk. "Even for me, that's pretty genius. If we can hold our breath forever, then who can stop us?"

"Exactly. The 3 wishes from the Namekian Dragonballs can be reserved for me regaining my youth and getting us bodies more worthy of us. Maybe immortality. That will just be a victory lap."

Guldo laughed and pat him on the back before going to walk out of the room with him. "You really have thought of everything! Couldn't have put it better myself."

The elder Guldo just gave a small sigh, annoyed at the pun. "Just call me Gurd, like I told everyone else. As far as the rest know, you're just going on a vacation with your grandpa."

* * *

Guldo and Gurd had almost made it down to Earth, still in their space pods. They were just now being awoken from stasis as they were about to enter the Earth's atmosphere, given it took them nearly a week to get there. In the least, the pods were spacious for someone as small as Guldo, given they were made big enough to carry hulking giants as big as Burter and Recoome, so Guldo wasn't especially stiff despite his body having been motionless for several days. When they landed and came out of their pods, it was clear Gurd was having a significantly harder time as he came out of his pod, practically coughing up a storm. Guldo went over to help him, but Gurd dismissively waved him off. "Don't worry, this is nothing compared to what I've gone through. Soon my age won't be a concern anymore regardless."

Gurd pointed off to two nearby pods. "There. Those must be Vegeta and Nappa's pods. They just landed here with the automated coordinates like we did. We have to hurry."

Guldo shrugged. "How are we going to track them? Did you bring a scouter?"

Gurd scoffed. "Of course not. You know as well as I do that scouters aren't made to fit on our heads. Anyway, yes, I thought this out. I learned to sense ki long before I learned how to travel through time. I'm not super good at it…But the biggest power level on this planet is unmistakably Vegeta's." He pointed off in another direction. "Half a dozen miles to the east."

The pair flew off together into the distance. Half a dozen miles didn't take them long to travel across with their level of speed before they eventually reached a desolate land. Guldo and Gurd hid behind a tall rock formation, waiting for the ideal chance to strike. Next to the ideal spot was a short fat samurai, whom attempted to run off in terror. Gurd sighed as he froze him in place with his Paralaysis technique. "Get rid of him."

Guldo levitated up a javelin made out of earth from the wall before getting ready to impale Yajirobe with it. "Is this really necessary?"

"I'm not going to risk everything I've come back for on the off chance this loser doesn't give away our position. Just do it."

Yajirobe just desperately attempted to flail around in the air. Gurd used his levitation to keep Yajirobe's mouth shut to prevent him from calling for help. Guldo did as ordered, casually impaling him to execute him.

Both the green aliens peeked out from around the corner to witness the ongoing battle. The arena was presumably chosen by the Z Fighters to minimize outside casualties from the fight. Several corpses were scattered about, with the newest body added to the pile being Nappa's as Goku casually tossed the hulking giant to the ground next to him. He addressed Vegeta. "Look, whoever you are, just take your friend with you and go. He's the one that killed my friends, and he's never going to be able to fight again. "

Vegeta folded his arms and scoffed. "Friend? A Saiyan who can't fight is worthless."

Nappa knew he could be saved by just taking a bath in a healing tank back in Frieza's territory, but he wasn't going to say that with Goku right there when he'd just killed so many of his friends. Still, it didn't even occur to him that Vegeta could betray him. He extended a hand up to Vegeta. "Vegeta, I can't even get up. Help a pal out here, would ya?"

Vegeta took Nappa's hand, reassuring him that Vegeta was just joking about what he said before. "Thanks, Vegeta. I know you'll be able to beat this disgrace to our race."

Vegeta smirked as he stared down at Nappa's beaten and bloodied face. "The only disgrace to our race is the person I'm staring at right now." Vegeta took advantage of his grip on Nappa to throw him a couple hundred feet into the air as he screamed in shock. Vegeta laughed at him as getting his hand in position to fire up at Nappa to finish him off. "Stop whining, a Saiyan should die with honor!" He charged up an energy wave. "Maybe you won't be such a disappoint in death!"

Gurd had already met Nappa in hell and already knew about this, given Nappa never shut up about how much he hated Vegeta. Guldo, on the other hand, was seeing this for the first time. Gurd spoke to Guldo telepathically to not draw any attention to them. "Alright, we go when he releases the beam from his hand to catch him off guard and kill him. 3…2…" Gurd turned over to his side to notice that without warning, Guldo was gone and had used his time stop ability. Gurd had entirely intended to sacrifice Nappa to guarantee the kill on Vegeta, but Guldo moved over with his time stop and leapt off the top of a rock spire to tackle Nappa out of the way of the attack.

Guldo wasn't entirely sure why he'd done it himself as he unfroze time. He certainly wasn't a good natured or heroic person, he just hated Vegeta enough that seeing this made him sick to his stomach. He saw an element of himself in Nappa, and wasn't going to let Vegeta humiliate another person like he humiliated him. He'd seen the kind of person he was eventually going to become in Gurd who so carelessly executed Yajirobe, and he didn't like it. While he'd mercilessly killed plenty of people in his time, this was a pretty direct wake up call when everything was put in front of him like this.

As time unfroze, nearly everybody was confused. Gurd was angry enough that he broke his cover to come out from behind the rock spire and yell at Guldo. "What'd you go and do that for?! That was the perfect chance to kill him!"

Guldo came up with a quick excuse to try to justify it to Gurd, replying telepathically. "Look, Nappa is so beat up his Zenkai should trigger, right? I saved his life, he owes us now. He'll be a good ally."

Vegeta was terrified at the sight of Guldo. He wasn't afraid of Guldo himself, but where one Ginyu was, the rest of the force was likely to follow. He frantically checked his scouter before the expression of terror turned into a smug grin. "You really scared me for a second there, Guldo. I almost thought a real threat was going to show up. What, did you get fired from the Ginyu Force?" He laughed before scanning Gurd with his scouter. "And who's this old man? His power level's even lower than yours!"

Guldo had been told by now that Goku was the heroic type, so he attempted to pretend his actions were out of some sense of justice. "That's not important! The important thing is that we've come here to stop you from doing your villainous deeds, you…Villain! I'm nothing like you!" Guldo was making this all up on the fly and could hardly believe how cheesy this sounded.

Vegeta could hardly hold back his laughter, to the point he eventually just burst out into a hearty laugh. "I'll take that as a yes on being fired from the Ginyus, then. Don't know why else you'd try to save a wimp like Nappa."

Nappa was still in enough pain he was struggling to process everything that had just happened, but managed to prop himself up against a rock. He had no idea why somebody like Guldo would want to save him. After the destruction of Planet Vegeta, the only other people he'd been able to trust were the two other surviving Saiyans. While his savior was puzzling enough, Vegeta's betrayal was devastating enough that that's all he was able to focus on. "How could you do that to me, Vegeta?! I was like a father to you after Planet Vegeta blew up!"

Vegeta stopped laughing, getting legitimately offended at what Nappa had said. "A father? You were nothing like my father! My father wouldn't have gone down like a sniveling coward and lose to a no name low class Saiyan like Kakarot!" He paused. "You know why I still call myself the -prince- of all Saiyans, right? The title of king still belongs to my father. Unlike you, he earned that respect!"

Nappa grit his teeth and shook his fist. "How old were you when your dad died? I knew him way longer than you, buddy. I was his general, while he just sat on his throne doing nothing. When planet Vegeta blew up, I bet your daddy screamed REAL good before he died!"

Vegeta was visibly shaking with fury and wanted to take the chance to kill him right then and there. He blasted off towards Nappa at top speed, wanting to take the chance to kill him before anyone else could interfere. Guldo wasn't nearly as fast as Vegeta in raw speed and attempted to levitate up debris in the middle of his path. Vegeta was able to maneuver around it at high speeds and avoid the brunt of it, only getting scratched by the side of the attack as he made his way in. Guldo used his signature ability to stop time right as Vegeta got in his and Nappa's face. Vegeta had an energy blast prepared to kill the both of them, but with the time stop increasing Guldo's reaction time, he was able to throw it back into Vegeta's face with his levitation as time resumed.

Getting hit by his own attack, Vegeta was stunned as his high speed meant he kept going and crashed through a large rock formation that fell down on and crushed him, skidding off into the distance. Guldo was quite pleased with himself as he pointed and laughed at Vegeta. While he knew he was the better fighter, he still hadn't totally expected the plan to work.

Goku had just watched all of this occur, not really understanding any of it. He addressed Gurd. "So who's side are you two on again?"

Gurd just went along with what Guldo had proposed. He had originally intended to kill Goku here also, but he decided that could wait for the time being. "Yours. We're here to help protect the earth from Frieza's forces. A galactic emperor far more powerful than Vegeta and Nappa who has conquered countless planets is going to come here soon, and we need the Dragonballs to stop him."

Goku scratched the back of his head. "Nice to have some aliens be friendly for a change, but we're fresh out of Dragonballs. That big muscular guy you saved? Nappa? He killed Piccolo, and without him there's no Dragonballs."

The large eyes on the side of Gurd's head visibly twitched in anger as he threw his hands up in the air. "OF COURSE there's no Dragonballs here." He murmured out loud. "ALL because of that STUPID Vegeta." Regardless of Nappa having been the one to do it, Gurd hated Vegeta enough that he irrationally placed all the blame on him.

While Vegeta was sure of himself, he was unfamiliar with Guldo's abilities and realized he had to take this fight seriously after how casually Guldo had interrupted his attack. To Vegeta, it just appeared like Guldo had reacted with near instant speed to repel the attack, and that wasn't something he could compete with, much less if they all ganged up on him. If he couldn't outspeed Guldo, he could at least outmuscle him. Vegeta hid in the rubble and produced a fake moon to transform into a Great Ape before bursting out from it. After completing the transformation, Vegeta made sure to destroy the moon so that Nappa couldn't transform either, though Nappa was fading from consciousness anyway. Now towering over everyone else in a body over a hundred feet tall, Vegeta laughed. "This is the power you threw away by getting rid of your tail, Kakarot. This form is meant to level civilizations! You should consider it an honor that I'm using it to kill you. If you had been one of us, this is the kind of power you could have at your fingertips!" Vegeta clenched his giant hand into a fist as he let out a smug grin.

Gurd stared up at Vegeta, for once actually scared. He went over next to Guldo and went to chew him out. "See? If you had just gone along with the plan, we wouldn't have to deal with this! Was it worth it?"

Guldo groaned. "Just use paralysis to stop him, alright? He's big and slow. It should be easy." Guldo attempted to use his paralysis technique on the great ape, followed by Gurd. Vegeta was so big in this form, though, that he couldn't be fully contained within the effects of Paralysis. Gurd kept one arm held in place while Guldo kept the other arm held down.

Vegeta was shocked that Guldo was even this strong as he grimaced in pain. "How? HOW? Your power level is less than a tenth of mine in this form!" He roared in anger as he desperately tried to free his arms, but was unable. Still, just because his arms were restrained, that didn't mean the rest of his body couldn't move. He chuckled. "No matter."

He charged a massive mouth beam. Guldo attempted to extend his paralysis to Vegeta's upper body, but to no avail. "You had a lifetime to train or whatever, can't you freeze any more of his body than that?!"

Gurd scoffed at Guldo. "I'm not used to fighting enemies this big!" He said as he too failed to extend out the paralysis' area of effect. Vegeta was almost ready to fire off the beam. "Abandon ship!" Gurd and Guldo used their time stop to avoid the attack, left with little other choice. When he came out of the time stop, Gurd looked around. "Well, at least Goku will surely have used the time we bought him to land an attack, right?"

Goku was off saving Nappa from the attack, taking him well out of the arena to not get in the way of any future attacks before he came back. Being saved by a third party was one thing, but Nappa was almost offended the person who had just beaten him up was trying to save him. "What're you saving me for? Guldo was weird enough, but you? Those guys I killed were your friends, weren't they?"

While Goku had killed people more carelessly as a child, he'd grown up into a more idealistic person as an adult. "After you were put in a position like that, I thought you might be able to see things from the perspectives of your victims. It's never too late to change." Goku hoped he could make another success story like Piccolo out of this.

Nappa still found it puzzling a Saiyan with such a warped mindset could manage to exist. He just laughed it off, not wanting to take responsibility for his actions just yet. "You can't be a true warrior when you're that soft, kid. If you hesitate to finish off your opponent, that'll be more than enough time for them to seize the opportunity."

"Then I'll just have to be even stronger." Goku put Nappa down and whisked off back to the fight. Nappa could hardly believe Goku had said something so cliché. Even if he was strong, with a mindset like that there was no way he could beat someone like Vegeta in Nappa's mind.

Meanwhile, Guldo and Gurd were attempting to fend Vegeta off with eye laser attacks and throwing debris at him. Vegeta was able to shrug off almost all of the attacks, with the worst that he was getting was having his ape fur singed by the explosive techniques. The two green aliens attempted to attack Vegeta from behind, but Vegeta only had to take a couple steps to keep his back to them given his massive size.

Vegeta was attempting to grab and punch at Guldo and Gurd, but it was like swatting flies as neither party was able to inflict much damage on the other. Deciding to launch an attack that was too big to dodge, Vegeta hefted a massive boulder from the ground before throwing it straight at Guldo. Guldo had already recently used his time stop so he couldn't avoid it that way, so he instead had to carve out a hole in the middle of the boulder with his eye lasers to not suffer the impact of the hit. Gurd took the chance to use his time stop to latch onto Vegeta's tail, and used his paralysis on it to try to stun him. While Gurd had a lot of intel on how Saiyans worked from the dead Raditz and Nappa of his timeline, Gurd had assumed what Raditz had told him in the afterlife for how Goku had defeated him would apply to Vegeta.

Vegeta just laughed this off and went to grab Gurd, dragging him off his tail. "That doesn't work on a Saiyan Elite like me, fool!" Gurd had already used both his time stop and paralysis, his two primary techniques, and was unable to avoid Vegeta's grab because of it. Vegeta considered bringing Gurd up against his face to intimidate him, but thought better of it and trapped him fully inside his hand. Vegeta had been perceptive enough by now to learn how they stopped time, and didn't want to give Gurd any chance to breathe as he suffocated the already out of breath Gurd. "Not so tough now when you can't breathe, are you?! I figured out the secret to your speed!"

Vegeta kept laughing, but couldn't keep it up for long before Guldo came up to try to free his future self. Guldo intended to use paralysis on Vegeta's hand to force him to drop Gurd, but Vegeta realized what was going to happen as he backed off and swatted away at Guldo with his free hand. Unable to otherwise communicate, Gurd went out of his way to talk to Guldo telepathically. "Just go after his tail and kill him! He only has one hand, he can't stop you!"

"What about you, though? I can't just leave you in there."

"I know that, you idiot! You're not abandoning me, just force him to revert so I can get out of his grip!"

"Can't you just use your time travel or something?"

"That takes nearly an hour, I can't use it in combat!"

Not wanting to fall to the same fate as Gurd, Guldo didn't want to use time stop for anything other than evasive purposes. After failing to get past Vegeta, Guldo eventually went under his giant legs and attempted to saw off his tail with his eye lasers. Frantic, Vegeta simply went to sit down to try to crush Guldo and cover up his weak spot by sitting on it, forcing another use of Guldo's time stop. This left Vegeta open enough for Goku to finally attempt a Kamehameha aimed at Vegeta's hand to try to free Gurd as he came back into the fight. Just because Vegeta's body was slower, though, it didn't mean his reaction time was any slower. As Vegeta saw the attack coming, he threw Gurd directly into the blast. Gurd was too suffocated from being squeezed by Vegeta's giant hand that he was unable to use time stop, resulting in Goku's blast killing him. Karma had hit Gurd hard for killing Yajirobe, given the fat samurai had somehow managed to cut off Vegeta's tail in the primary timeline he'd originally come from. The beam went well past Gurd and into Vegeta's hand, singing his fur slightly as the first attack so far that had managed to damage him in this form.

Vegeta let out a hearty laugh. "You spend all that time saving that useless fool Nappa, all just to kill another ally on accident. Are you seeing just how stupid you are now, Kakarot? It's impossible to keep dead weight like them around! Only the strong survive in the real world!"

Guldo was practically traumatized that he'd somehow failed to save his alternate self. If a more experienced version of himself that could time travel couldn't survive, what chance did he have? He knew Vegeta was a weakling in his regular form, but was getting incredibly overwhelmed by Vegeta's raw power in Great Ape form. "If you're so confident, why don't you try to fight me without your giant form, huh, big shot?"

Vegeta chuckled. "Oh, cute little Guldo. Aren't you the one who always whined that your power level undersold your fighting abilities? Don't think you're so special. I've kept the raw power of this form on the downlow for years, and I'm not going to let you live to tattle to Ginyu about it!"

He went and did a simple stomp after Guldo, which was rather easily evaded. Knowing that Goku apparently somehow defeated Frieza in the alternate timeline, he looked over to him angrily. "What's the plan now?!"

Goku wasn't exactly the best when it came to strategy. "I dunno, Guldo. You have that weird stun ability, right? Could you hold him for a while while I charge my spirit bomb attack?"

Guldo grunted. "Fine, how long do I have to hold him?"

"Two minutes or so?"

Guldo rolled all four of his eyes. "Two MINUTES? Who would EVER let you charge up an attack that long?"

Goku shrugged. "Well, something similar worked on that Raditz guy who came through here earlier. I guess it did get me killed though, so it's probably not a good idea!"

Realizing Goku was an idiot and clearly the much weaker of the two Saiyans here, Guldo came up with his own plan. "Fine, how about this. You need to get him to use his mouth beam attack, alright?"

"How am I supposed to do that?"

"I've been the distraction for WAY too long in this fight! It's your turn to take the heat. Get up in his face, try to attack his eyes, I don't know."

Goku did as directed by Guldo, lacking much in the way of other ideas when the vicious Vegeta wasn't giving them much chance to fight back or to even try to attack his tail. Goku attempted to dodge around Vegeta's face as firing small ki blasts towards his eyeballs, prompting Vegeta to shield his eyes with one hand as peeking between his fingers, swatting at Goku with the other. Goku was only very narrowly avoiding getting grabbed. Realizing he wasn't making much progress this way with his goal, Goku went down into his mouth and attempted to fire a Kamehameha down Vegeta's throat as he briefly opened his mouth. Vegeta was on point, however, interrupting Goku long before he could do it as he bit forwards at him. Left with no other choice to evade the attack while keeping his Kamehameha beam going, Goku moved forwards slightly to evade Vegeta's giant teeth and enter his mouth as the beam was ready to fire, sending it down his gullet. Vegeta's insides were far more vulnerable to the attack than his outsides, doing great damage to him if not nearly enough to take him out.

Meanwhile, Vegeta had to sit down again to defend his tail from being attacked by Guldo, with Guldo's levitated javelins not even able to pierce the giant ape's armor around his lower torso. Taking Goku's Kamehameha caused enough pain to Vegeta he fell over on his back in pain, taking a couple seconds to get up. As he fell over, he opened his mouth in pain, allowing Goku to escape it. Goku kept up the assault, flying directly towards his face. Vegeta, afraid of something similar happening again, charged his mouth blast to try to wipe Goku out. Goku didn't have enough time to get out of the way of the attack's massive area of effect and could easily be wiped out by the move, but Guldo finally took his chance. With all of his might, Guldo used the power of his levitation to force Vegeta's mouth closed just as the beam was ready to fire, causing Vegeta to take the full brunt of his own attack as the blast went directly through the front of his primate muzzle and shattered all of his teeth. While the blast still hit Goku, going through Vegeta's body significantly weakened the otherwise fatal attack from killing him.

Vegeta grit what remained of his teeth, now missing a large portion of the skin from around his mouth. He was in great pain and strained himself to be able to speak, but given his tail was still in perfect condition he wasn't forced to go back to his previous form just yet. "You were so weak that you had to use my own power to damage me. How utterly pathetic." With some hesitance he stood back up from the ground. "Was that the best plan you had? Do you think I'm going to be stupid enough to use that attack again, Guldo?" He looked around from side to side. With his towering height, he was able to see a massive distance, but he still couldn't see him. Even with the damage he had taken, he still had plenty enough fight in him to let out another laugh. "It seems your last ally has abandoned you! This is what trusting in others gets you, Kakarot. The only person you can rely on at the end of the day is yourself!"

Guldo had realized the fight was nothing short of hopeless, especially when he'd lost Gurd. Guldo was taking the chance to run after Vegeta took the biggest damage he was going to take, having used time stop to get as far away as possible and to reunite with Nappa. He picked him up with his levitation as he made his way back over to the pods. Nappa was happy to see Guldo. "You're back, does that mean you finished him off?"

Guldo groaned. "No, no, of course not. That would be too simple. I missed my chance for a clean kill on him because I was too busy saving you." Guldo was deeply regretting having traded the life of his alternate self for Nappa.

"What did you even come here for in the first place? Did Frieza order you to put Vegeta down or something?"

"It's a long story. I came here for the Dragonballs, like you, but apparently, they're already gone because you went and killed their creator like an idiot. For now, we need to escape this planet before Vegeta is done with 'Kakarot.'"

"What about after that? What are you gonna need me for?"

Guldo didn't intend to tell Nappa about his race's insanely powerful Zenkai ability yet. "We're going to Namek to claim the Dragonballs of that planet instead. Those grant three wishes instead of just one. I'll get two wishes, and you'll get the one leftover. Only fair considering I saved your life, isn't it?" Guldo was unsure of if he intended to follow through and actually give Nappa that wish or not, but he wasn't going to go to Namek empty handed.

Nappa was still unsure of why Guldo needed him, though even without a Zenkai boost Nappa was still a powerful force to be reckoned with thanks to his own Great Ape form that he never got the chance to use against Goku. "You've got yourself a deal."


	2. Point of No Return

Guldo brought Nappa back to a research facility under Frieza's control, knowing he needed to get him healed up before venturing out to Namek. He made sure to pick the most obscure base he could think of, as he didn't want to be seen with a low class Saiyan monkey by the rest of the force or, god forbid, Frieza. Nappa had many questions he intended to ask, but was on the verge of death from Goku's attacks and had to spend some time in the healing tank before he'd even be capable of holding a conversation. Guldo groaned when Nappa couldn't even make it into the healing tank himself, having to help levitate the big oaf in given everyone else around was too weak to carry him. Just as Guldo went to turn around and leave, he noticed Burter towering over him.

Guldo was flabbergasted. "Huh, what?" He paused and cleared his throat. "What a pleasant surprise to see you, Burter! What brings you here?"

Burter folded his arms. "I'll ask the questions. Didn't you say you were supposed to be on vacation or whatever? Where's gramps?"

Guldo said the first excuse that came to his head. "Vacation's over. It wasn't far from the resort planet, so there wasn't much travel time."

Burter was still skeptical, but just wanted to get to the big question. "Whatever, what are you doing HERE then? Why are you with him? That's Vegeta's lackey. Don't you hate Vegeta?"

"Of course I hate Vegeta! I was just helping out the poor doctors who had to carry this behemoth around. I was here to…Pick up some medicine for my grandpa. He's not military so he doesn't have clearance to use this facility."

Burter shrugged. "Well it's a good thing I checked in then." He abruptly went to grab the neck of the doctor in the room, not so much strangling him as popping his head off his shoulders due to an unnecessary show of strength. "I could've killed you on accident. Ginyu would've been furious."

Guldo assumed Burter probably cared more about 'Ginyu getting furious' than Burter actually caring about his life at all. "Is that why you're here? Orders to destroy this place?"

Burter nodded. "Yep. This dump went in the red for Frieza financially, so it was added to the list."

"Fine, fine, whatever. Just give me a few minutes to get the medicine. I didn't come out all this way just for something you could get anywhere. I'll call you, alright? Kill some of them by hand. Entertain yourself."

Burter stared at Nappa and smirked, smacking his fists together. "How about him?"

Guldo laughed, trying to play along with Burter. "Oh yeah, you're totally right! This is the perfect excuse to kill him and get back at Vegeta! You mind if I do it? Just give me this one thing."

Burter sighed. "I suppose you deserve to get your frustrations out on somebody. Fine, he's yours." Burter figured he might be able to cool off Guldo's opinion of him by letting him focus his aggression on someone else, even if only slightly. At the end of the day, they still had to work together.

Burter left the room. If he actually used his speed, he could kill everyone in the place in a mere sixty seconds at most, but given he had some time to kill he went with slower, more sadistic killings. Guldo heaved a sigh of relief. He went to go hoard some medicine, picking it at random, just as an excuse in case Burter came back early.

Guldo had never actually scanned Nappa's power level before, but he knew Vegeta's was at least 10,000 and Nappa was supposed to be the second strongest Saiyan. He went and got a scouter off a man in the hall Burter had already carelessly killed, then went to scan Nappa. His power level read a mere 5,200. Despite the fact it had already occurred, Guldo assumed that the Zenkai boost had not come into play yet from how pitifully low that number was, or that perhaps his power level was showing up as low given he was still healing. Regardless, Guldo knew that Nappa still had his tail and could transform into a Great Ape like Vegeta could. Even with only 5,200, the transformation would put Nappa at 52,000, which would comfortably overpower Burter's 45,000. He intended to stall for Nappa to have as much time to heal as possible before he'd just have him kill Burter. While the Great Apes were slow which would be a problem against Burter's speed, Guldo could hold Burter in place for the finishing blow.

After a few minutes, Guldo was paranoid enough about Burter coming back that he pulled the plug on Nappa's rejuvenation by opening the door of the glass tank and dumping him out on the floor with his telekinesis. Nappa spat up some of the healing juices, puzzled by this as he got up to his feet in annoyance. "Seriously? Has it really been 4 hours already?" He was definitely still in pain as he held onto his back where Goku had punched him, having only got about 10 minutes to heal at most. He at least was in no danger of dying anymore, but was far from top shape.

Guldo shook his head. "We don't have 4 hours. One of the other Ginyu Force members, Burter, happened to be here, and he's blowing this place sky high. I don't intend on telling anyone else about our plans on Namek, they would just try to take our wishes from us. I couldn't come up with a believable excuse for why I would need you."

"And what do you expect me to do about it?"

He rolled his eyes. "I didn't team up with you for your diplomatic ability, Nappa. Obviously we're gonna kill him."

"Well that goes without saying, really. How do we kill him? The rest of the Ginyu Force makes even Zarbon and Dodoria look like wimps."

"I got to see the power of the Great Ape firsthand on Earth. If you activate that, we should be able to defeat him without much issue."

Nappa looked out the window, clearly seeing it was still evening. "How do you expect me to turn into a Great Ape without a moon?"

"What does that have to do with anything?!"

"You need a moon to turn into a Great Ape. All Saiyans know that!"

Guldo was getting annoyed with how arrogant Nappa was despite his incompetence. "…Yes, all three of them. Anyway, Vegeta didn't need one, why do you need one?"

"He must've used his fake moon attack. It's energy made to look like the moon, and if he stares at it, he can turn into a Great Ape. I never bothered to learn that technique."

At this point Guldo was getting ready to just kill Nappa. He was seriously fed up with him, and he was running out of options to keep up his act with Burter. "How much older are you than Vegeta?! Don't tell me you 'never bothered to learn it.' Namek doesn't even have moons, only suns! How are you supposed to help me if you can't turn into an overgrown ape?! USELESS!"

Nappa wasn't going to take the insults lying down. "I didn't learn the technique because it was pointless! All the Planet Vegeta Space Pods can emit radiation waves that's just as good as staring at the moon. All this time later, I've still got mine. You just get me to my pod and I can go Great Ape and kill Burter."

Guldo couldn't decide what was more annoying anymore, he almost wished Nappa didn't have an excuse. "Fine. Fine! Go make your way back to the pod. I'll come up with something to distract him. Leave a minute after I do, alright?"

Nappa nodded as Guldo left to go find Burter. Even without carrying a scouter with him, following the trail of blood and the sounds of screams didn't take Guldo that long to locate him. When Guldo found him, Burter looked disappointed, if anything. "Hey, Guldo. You get what you need already? You can have a little longer if you want."

Guldo smirked. "Having fun, I see? I got to see a lot of your handiwork on my way over." He knew there probably weren't that many more people alive for him to even kill. "I thought you were in a rush?"

"I was, this was a pretty boring execution job. You know how it is, though. Once I get going it's hard to stop me."

Guldo's expression turned more serious. "Do you really get that much of a rush from just killing harmless people who can't fight back? What have they done to you?" Guldo was no stranger to devaluing people's lives either, but he needed a pretty lengthy topic to discuss to stall for Nappa.

Burter cocked an eye at Guldo. "Wouldn't expect a question like that coming from a self-centered guy like you, Guldo. Anyway, these people were destined to die the moment Frieza gave the order. May as well give their lives some purpose in their final moments by giving me something to do." He shrugged.

"Were they really destined to die? If you just told them what was going on and allowed them to leave while blowing up the building, I doubt they'd resurface again."

The still live researcher at the other end of the room made sure to make his opinion on the matter known. "Yes, yes, I'd change my name, go into hiding, I'd never speak of this again! Please don't do this!"

Burter ignored the other man and only focused on what Guldo said. "I guess I never thought of it that way? At least not in a long time. Either way, if I just let that many people live, odds are at least one of them would either blab their gums or get discovered. Frieza does this sort of thing to make an example that failure isn't acceptable. What kind of example is it if the people don't actually die?"

Guldo had just expected for Burter to laugh off the concept of these lives mattering, as he certainly knew Recoome or Ginyu would've. He didn't particularly care either, but the fact this was going anywhere at all meant this was probably a somewhat sensitive topic for Burter. "I don't know, you could just anonymously contact them in advance to avoid having your name brought up. There are all sorts of ways you could get around this if you cared. The question is if you do care."

"I USED to care. I had to shut up the part of my mind that cared a long time ago to do this kind of work. With Frieza in charge, that's just how the world works." Burter was beginning to realize this conversation was uncharacteristic for Guldo. "You kill people for dumb reasons anyway. Those slaves in the hotel weren't destined to die."

Guldo struggled to try to come up with a convincing reason. If anything, he figured he was doing the slaves a favor by killing them. "Yes, and I feel so very HORRIBLE about that." He couldn't bring himself to say it in the most convincing way and quickly moved on. "I don't know, I've just been feeling guilty. I talked it over with my grandpa, he gave me a lot to think about. You can credit this sudden 'change of heart' to him if you want."

Burter smiled at him. "Heh, never thought you'd go soft. You had some serious balls for saying what you did back at the bar."

Guldo was surprised Burter was buying any of this, at this point he was almost fooling himself into believing what he was saying. "That was entirely different. Does killing civilians really make you tough? Doesn't it make you tougher to take a stand?"

"I guess I can't deny that. Look, Guldo, I'm sorry about what happened earlier at the bar. I just wrote you off as the kind of guy who'd say anything to get what he wanted. You know I can't let you go badmouthing Jeice and I in front of the captain. If you had just said that to my face without all the others there, I wouldn't have punched you."

Guldo had been starting to feel bad about his intentions to murder Burter, but he wasn't ready to accept the apology. If anything, it had only sparked more anger in him. The act was dropping now, and he was talking about this for real. "Saying it in front of everybody was the point! Seriously, what's going to happen when we fight somebody that can put up a challenge? We need to work on fighting as a team, not killing people in the most non sensical over the top way just because we're bored with our jobs! My abilities are best with other people to back me up, but everybody wants to go off on their own because they're so used to every fight being so damn easy!"

"Hey now, don't blame me on the whole lack of teamwork thing! I team up with Jeice all the time! I don't need you to stun people because I'm so fast. As far as that nonsense of somebody putting up a challenge…" He shrugs. "I'm not convinced somebody like that exists. I guess I can see where you're coming from. We've fought a handful of people with power levels over 10,000 who could hurt you if they got lucky, but they're nothing next to the rest of us."

Guldo was getting annoyed at Burter being condescending towards him again. Given what Gurd had told him, Guldo had finally got validation on what he'd thought all along. Legitimate threats were coming, and Guldo had personally seen them firsthand. "Yeah, holding a person in place before you finish them off isn't the most flashy, but it's a lot more practical than that weird tornado attack you use. How is that any better than you just using your speed and going in while Jeice gives you some long range support or something? Everything with you people is about flash."

Burter didn't want to have this conversation again, the main reason he was trying to be nicer to Guldo was because of what he'd said about morality earlier. "You just think the 'flash' is bad because you're not included. Why don't we try to work up some cool looking attack we could do together?" He smiled at him.

Guldo smirked back at him. While he was far from completely satisfied, he hadn't expected an offer like that. "I might have to take you up on that. But, uh, first. There's something else we have to talk about."

Guldo was surprised Nappa hadn't arrived already, but he was having serious second thoughts about killing Burter. When he first started this conversation, he had expected to have one final confrontation with Burter to affirm that he was an irredeemable monster before he killed him. Part of him wished that things were that simple, as he had a conflict of interests now and again had to choose between potential allies to take with him. He had probably got as much of a concession from Burter as he was going to get. As much as he hated to admit it, Burter did have some legitimate reason to think the way he did, as the only reason he knew about these incoming super strong warriors was because of Gurd.

Guldo had taken some time to think, and Burter was getting a little impatient. "Yeah?" He had noticed that the researcher in the room had already long since made a run for it, but he hadn't bothered to chase after him.

Guldo knew Gurd would probably be furious if he shared this information with anyone else, but there were three wishes on the Dragonballs and he only needed one to become invincible. "You said with Frieza in charge, that killing people like this is just how the world works. What if I told you it didn't have to be that way? What if there was a way to oust Frieza from power?"

Burter shrugged. "That'd be great and all if a world like that existed, but it doesn't, so I don't see much point talking about magical perfect worlds filled with lollipops and rainbows."

Guldo intended to compromise and only tell Burter about the Dragonballs without bringing up what Gurd had said about their incoming deaths. "There's these magic orbs called the Dragonballs that can grant three wishes. They're able to do anything you want. With them, we can wish for Frieza's death." He intentionally lied about the capabilities of the Dragonballs. Gurd had told him killing, hurting, or otherwise handicapping people above a certain level was impossible for the dragon. Even blowing up Frieza's space station when he was in it apparently wouldn't kill him, as apparently he could survive in space. Ideally, Burter would waste his wish on something impossible while Guldo would use it on something meaningful. Apparently, Goku and Vegeta were going to kill Frieza regardless, so it was no loss.

Burter folded his arms, suspicious of this. This sounded impossible, the only reason he was even entertaining it was because of the more legitimate conversation that had preceded it. "What's the catch? Why are you telling me all of this anyway?"

"I looked around in some of Frieza's files, he's going to go there soon. He intends to use them himself. Don't know what more he could really want, probably to live forever or something. Do you really want him to live forever? With your speed, we'd be able to get the Dragonballs before Frieza ever comes along. It'll be easy. There's three wishes. More than enough to share between us!"

Burter's interest was rapidly growing as he grew a smirk. He would need to be told more, but he was getting ready to go along with Guldo's proposition.

This was interrupted when Nappa's gigantic ape foot stomped through the building next to them. Burter ran out of the building on reflex to try to see what was going on, while Guldo used his time stop to come along next to him. He was thinking all of this up on the fly and was still unsure how he was going to wrap up these two alliances together. His plans had changed multiple times over the past hour.

Guldo was out of breath by the time he got out of the research facility since he had used time stop to get out, much too exhausted to talk. Nappa kept stomping down at Burter, but Burter was way too fast for him to be able to hit. He flew up to attack Nappa from the side and did a series of kicks, but these just served to annoy Nappa and did no real damage. In the fight between two people who either couldn't be hurt or couldn't be hit, this was going nowhere fast. Burter didn't know about Nappa's weakness, and Nappa had his tail firmly wrapped around his waist to protect it anyway. Nappa let out a hearty laugh. "You might think you're a big guy, but to me you're just an insect! I can barely even feel your attacks!"

By this time, Guldo had recovered enough stamina to be able to speak, but given Nappa was a giant monster his voice easily overpowered Guldo's and made it inaudible. "You called ME useless? Guldo, get over here and hold this annoying fly still so I can pulverize him!"

Burter didn't need to hear any more to realize he'd been played. While he didn't know about the weaknesses of a Great Ape, they were still famous enough that he at least knew what they were. He put one and two together and realized that this had to be Nappa, and Guldo formed some plan with him in the other room after he'd left. He angrily came down next to Guldo. "Care to explain yourself, traitor? Were you lying through your teeth that entire time?"

Guldo put his hands up in a forceful 'stop' motion. "Everybody just calm down! Yes, Burter, the original plan WAS to kill you. After what you did to me at the bar, could you blame me? Be glad I gave you that one last conversation. I…I uh, changed my mind when you said you didn't want to kill people. You were a better person than I thought you were."

Burter was far from satisfied, but he still needed to know more about these Dragonballs if he was going to pursue them on his own. He sighed and just pointed up to the hundred foot tall elephant in the room looming over them. "And what about him?"

"At the time, I thought any of you would just take all the wishes for yourselves if I told you! What would you need me for after I gave you that information? Nappa, on the other hand, needs me. We, you know, work together well as a team. We can't just casually blow everything up single handedly like you can."

"And what do you need him for, exactly? He's just wasting a perfectly good wish for the rest of us. I'm the muscle, you're the intel. We don't need anyone else." At this point, Burter was considering just beating the information out of Guldo. He didn't appreciate being lied to.

Nappa didn't know what to think of all of this. He didn't know that the sappy story about valuing life was a lie, and his opinion of Guldo lowered somewhat for hearing it. "I could say the same thing about you, blue guy. Guldo, you put it best. We need each other, we have an understanding. What's to stop this guy from just taking it all for himself?"

Guldo had been making this up as he went along, so the plan was far from perfect. If he'd just stuck to Gurd's plan, everything would've been far simpler. "There are three wishes and there's three of us. That's one for each of us. That's plenty to share." Despite what he said, even now Guldo intended to keep all the wishes for himself. So long as he got the first wish, everything else was irrelevant.

Burter rolled his eyes. "I was planning on telling Jeice about this. That would mean one of us loses out on a wish."

Guldo was surprised Burter was good enough friends with Jeice he'd tell him about this, and he definitely didn't like that. "We need a good team to ensure this works. Frieza's going to touch down on the planet with the Dragonballs soon. It's close enough to where we are right now that we can make it, but Jeice would take too long to get there to help." This was yet another lie, he had no idea where Jeice even currently was.

Burter groaned. "One of those three wishes has to be used up on Frieza dying. Nobody wants to be the guy who has to waste their wish on that. When it comes down to it, there's only two personal wishes. One to make me the fastest in the universe, one to kill Frieza, and one for you to…I don't know. Grow taller?"

Guldo chuckled a bit when Burter directly acknowledged that he wasn't as fast as he kept bragging about, but got annoyed when he insulted his appearance. He did his best to continue trying to manipulate him. "I'll be the one to wish for his death! You two can wish for whatever you want. You can't possibly be as bad as Frieza was."

At this point Burter was finally starting to question the whole thing about Guldo being a moral, upstanding guy. No matter what so called 'change of heart' Guldo had, there was no way he would pass up a wish to make himself be relevant. "Yeah, sorry, not buying it. You're gonna have to make a choice. Me, or the balding monkey man."

While Nappa hadn't said a whole lot in his defense, what he'd said was very true. Even if Guldo intended to side against Nappa, he'd seen how well it would go fighting a Great Ape with Vegeta. His abilities didn't work well enough against giant foes. If he had the conversation with Burter before making the deal with Nappa, it could've easily worked out, but as is things were just too awkward and Nappa was the more dependable partner anyway.

The issue was that Burter was already right next to him. While Burter wasn't the fastest in the universe, he was still much faster, and Burter was very much aware of Guldo's signature paralysis ability by now. Recognizing he wouldn't be able to trap Burter with paralysis before Burter could interrupt him, Guldo intentionally went to do an exaggerated motion to fake that he was going to use his paralysis attack on him as he extended his arms out to either side.

Burter took Guldo's bait and went to punch him hard enough the fist could go straight through his face. Guldo didn't have anywhere near enough time to react, but predicted the attack well in advance and used his time stop to save himself. When time was frozen, the fist was just inches from his face, if he had timed it any differently he'd either be dead or Burter wouldn't be as vulnerable. Guldo quickly went to get out of the way of the attack and get behind him with time frozen, getting as far away as he could while still being in range to trap Burter in his paralysis. When time resumed, Guldo used paralysis to hold him down. He hadn't ever used it on a foe as powerful as Burter before, but it worked just the same as it did on anyone else. Burter was helpless and unable to escape.

Guldo took the chance to laugh at him. "Not so fast anymore, are you? If you were as fast as you say, you should've been able to react to my time stop! Tell me who the real fastest man in the universe is. Say it!" Guldo was about ready to burst into evil laughter, he'd never felt such a rush like this. He couldn't use any of his other techniques while holding Burter down, as he was significantly harder to keep restrained than the fodder he was used to killing.

Burter never thought he'd be killed by Guldo and a mere Saiyan of all people. He refused to accept this and kept trying to escape his grip. He had far too much pride to beg, and the last thing he wanted to do was give Guldo that satisfaction. Nappa, meanwhile, didn't need to be told what to do as he casually went to do a forceful stomp down on top of Burter. The stomp was powerful enough to create a giant crater around Burter as debris flew everywhere from the force of his foot. Guldo was far enough away he wasn't in the radius of the crater, but the crater was deep enough that it knocked Burter down plenty far enough to knock him out of paralysis' area of effect.

Both Guldo and Nappa assumed the stomp would be enough to kill Burter by itself as Nappa lifted his foot up off of him. Burter was a mangled mess of a man underneath the foot and had both of his arms broken, but he wasn't dead. He laid down in pain for a few seconds before getting to his feet. He wanted more time to rest, but he had to get out of the area as soon as possible. He couldn't survive another attack like that. His legs were still perfectly functional, and they were his main claim to fame given they were the source of his speed that he prided himself on so much. He zipped up out of the side of the crater, running vertically up the wall before gathering enough ki to fly up and away out of it.

Guldo only realized Burter wasn't dead when he came out of the crater, and he was still fast enough that by the time he realized it Burter was already pretty high up in the air. Burter was going straight up, and Guldo realized he probably intended to flee. Even if Burter came back to kill Guldo, he had no way to kill Nappa without knowing about his weakness and having both of his arms broken.

Guldo knew if Burter escaped this fight and told anybody about this he was as good as dead. He frantically froze time as soon as he could. Given he couldn't use any of his powers at all while time was frozen, he couldn't just casually fly up after Burter to use paralysis on him again, though. Thankfully, Nappa's towering height proved a sufficient way for Guldo to reach him. He ran up to Nappa's foot he was using to support himself and went to climb up the leg of the oversized beast, all while still keeping time frozen. His previous use of time stop had been very brief, so he had pretty much all of his breath back by this point. Climbing Nappa while holding his breath wasn't an easy feat, but he knew he had to keep going and powered through.

By the time Guldo reached Nappa's knee, he was already high up enough, but he still wasn't in horizontal range to use paralysis. Frantic and seeing no alternative, Guldo jumped forwards to try to latch onto his back with the last of his breath, having just enough height to make the jump feasible. The massive difference in height between Guldo and Burter was enough that Burter couldn't hit Guldo without using his broken arms while he was behind him.

When time resumed, Guldo was too exhausted to immediately use paralysis again the instant he did it. When Burter felt the pudgy green alien on his back, he turned to glare at him as he frantically tried to muster the strength in his arms to get him off, but failed. "Holy hell, how long CAN you stop time?" Unable to hit him, Burter went to fly in rapid loops in midair, putting his speed to use as he desperately attempted to fling Guldo off his back. The problem for Guldo was that he needed his hands to hold onto Burter, but he also needed them both to use the paralysis technique. Burter knew that, and had to do everything in his power to avoid getting stunned a second time. "Get off you parasite!"

Guldo tried to use his paralysis technique as planned, but he could barely keep his hands off of Burter for a fraction of a second without getting flung off the spinning blue giant. While Burter was spinning around in circles, he still had enough momentum to move away from Nappa to ensure he couldn't interfere. After realizing this obviously wasn't working, Guldo went to carefully climb up Burter's body to straddle the back of his head. He went to wrap his legs around Burter's neck so that his hands could finally be free to use paralysis. Burter didn't realize what was happening in time, but this did enable Burter to finally get an attack in as he forcefully chomped down on Guldo's leg. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and while Burter had never used his mouth to attack before the massive size difference between the two meant it still hit hard as Guldo let out a yelp of pain.

Guldo stunned Burter in mid-air successfully, but his entire leg was in Burter's mouth. If he let down the paralysis, he could probably rip it clean off. Keeping the paralysis going while he was in this much pain wasn't easy, and Nappa wouldn't get into melee range by that point. He yelled out over to Nappa. "Mouth beam, now!"

Nappa thought the order was weird given the attack would almost assuredly kill Guldo also, but that wouldn't be the worst outcome for him at the end of the day. It would just mean more wishes for him, after all! He charged up and fired the mouth beam as directed. Just before the destructive wave of energy was about to make contact with them, Guldo lifted the paralysis on Burter and activated time stop. He sacrificed his leg as Burter's jaws fully clamped down and ripped it off. He couldn't keep his breath held for more than a second given the immense pain. He had intended to drop down out of the way of the attack with time frozen, but he was in too much pain to do that. Lacking an alternative, he used Burter as a shield from the attack as he again clung onto his back, letting him soak up the hit for him. What remained of Burter's corpse went to crash down onto Guldo and crush him, with him barely managing to escape given he couldn't muster the energy to use time stop.

More concerned that Burter was dead than his own well being, he glanced over his shoulder to ensure that Nappa had finished the job. The Great Ape went to stomp on Burter's body again to leave no room for doubt. Heaving a sigh of relief, Guldo went to slump over on the ground, inspecting the stump that was now there in place of his leg. Nappa reverted to his regular form and approached Guldo. "Didn't expect you to come out on top when you got in so close with the guy. That was crazy. With you holding them in place and my power, we make a pretty great team."

Guldo was angry how he had to do all the dirty work as he risked his life and had to come up with new strategies for every opponent, while all Nappa had to do was sit there and mindlessly fire an attack or two while being in no real danger. Still, when he'd just murdered Burter, he had no intention of burning the bridge with his remaining ally. "Just between the two of us, we have more teamwork than the entire Ginyu Force did."

Nappa pointed out the obvious. "What about your leg?"

"What ABOUT my leg? I just killed somebody with a power level of 45,000 who claimed to be the fastest in the universe and thought nobody would ever be able to challenge him." Guldo was still on an adrenaline rush from that battle.

"That's nice and all, but we still have Dragonballs to find. How are you supposed to help me get them without your leg?"

"Have you seen my legs? They're useless for combat. I just float around the battlefield with levitation anyway." Guldo would've loved to have been born as tall as Burter with giant legs, and wasn't exactly going to miss the one he lost.

"You're probably gonna bleed out. Pretty sure the healing machine doesn't entirely regenerate lost limbs."

Guldo started coming down to reality. "Oh, so I am." He pondered what he was going to do about this. "The researchers in that facility think I'm a hero. I'll say I did this to save them. They'll make me a cybernetic leg."

"Do we have that kind of time?"

Guldo glared at Nappa. "You're still supposed to be hurt from the fight with Kakarot, remember? Just be glad Burter didn't target you."

He sighed. "You just made it sound really urgent we get to Namek when you were talking to Burter earlier."

"That was all a load of garbage when I was trying to get him to help us. There was no way I was ever going to let Jeice in on this deal."

Nappa picked up Guldo and held him in one arm, propping up his stump with his other arm to minimize the bleeding. While Nappa wasn't quite as tall as Burter, he was still big enough it was practically like he was carrying a baby as he took him back into the building. "Did you mean what you said about Frieza?"

Guldo was annoyed Nappa was still even talking to him when he'd just had his leg ripped off. "I know you obviously must have a grudge against him…" He didn't bother telling him Frieza had been the one to blow up his home planet yet, as the pain was catching up to him. "Don't worry about him. By the time we get our wishes, Frieza will be nothing more than an afterthought."


	3. Not Budging an Inch

Guldo had to eventually finish the job Burter had started in the research facility to minimize suspicion, though he didn't have it in him to kill what few survivors were left when they were praising him as a hero. His new leg served as more than just a prosthetic and came with some additional combat features, and they were able to use all the resources at their disposal given Guldo had to destroy the place afterwards anyway. The leg gave him a retractable blade on his heel, which would help Guldo have something sharp to attack with when time was frozen rather than his small stubby leg. It also served as a ki amplifier, enabling Guldo to fire ki from that leg in addition to his own hands. Ki attacks fired from it would be marginally more powerful than those generated directly through his own power, though since that part of him was mechanical his power level still only showed as a mere 10,000 which meant everybody would continue to underestimate him. If anything, Guldo practically wanted to thank Burter for giving him such a generous "gift" with his death.

After having fully healed, Guldo and Nappa finally touched down on Namek. Nappa did a cursory scan with his scouter before nodding to Guldo. "Yeah, I can barely even see any power levels above a thousand. They're definitely not here yet."

Guldo heaved a sigh of relief. "Good, good. If we can just get them all before they show up this should be very easy. Don't waste time, though. We're going to split up to get the Dragonballs as quickly as possible."

Nappa smacked his fists together. "Hear ya loud and clear."

Nappa got ready to leave, but Guldo stopped him. "Aren't you forgetting something?" He pointed off to Nappa's pod.

Nappa felt insulted. "I don't need to turn Great Ape to kill some wimpy Namekians!"

"Frieza's army could arrive at any time. You should really take it with you in case you need to transform."

Nappa groaned as he went to haul the pod up over his shoulder. He was powerful enough it didn't really inconvenience him much. "Alright, can I go have some fun now?" He asked Guldo like an impatient child.

Guldo waved him off dismissively. "Yes, yes, you know what to do. Get it done." Nappa shot off into the distance at full speed, giddy for the chance to kill some innocents again.

Guldo had reasons beyond just speed for splitting up. Gurd had told him how the Namekian Dragonballs only responded to the Namekian language, and he intended to go learn it without telling anyone else about that fact so only he could use the Dragonballs. Guldo made his way to the first Namekian village he could find in the opposite direction Nappa went and did his best to make peace with the locals. He was unsure how this was going to go, but was surprised when he could hear them conversing amongst themselves in the universal tongue instead of something incomprehensible. He wondered if this would be simpler than he'd thought.

Deciding he should best make a show of it, Guldo decided to put the 'training' he'd gone under Ginyu to use as he went through their usual routine of poses before shouting his name. He wanted to come across as a hero. More than anything, this just puzzled the Namekians before one finally came up to ask him who he was.

How did Ginyu think those poses made them look stylish? He quickly went into a more normal stance as he went to introduce himself. "That was just the greeting of the people from my planet…" He cleared his throat. "Greetings, citizens of Namek! I am Guldo, the legendary hero from the stars, and I have come here to save you from a great upcoming threat. Lord Frieza, the galactic tyrant who has enslaved over half the galaxy, intends to use your Dragonballs to make himself immortal while killing every last one of you. I may not be strong enough to defeat him now, but with the help of the Dragonballs I will have more than enough power to do so."

The Namekians didn't know what to think, but the elder came forward and spoke up on their behalf quickly. "We appreciate your offer and thank you for your warning, but the Dragonballs aren't something we can just hand out for free. We will use them on our own people and we will defeat this so-called 'Frieza'. You are more than welcome to join in the fight alongside us if you wish."

Guldo wished he had gone Nappa's route when he heard that, but he still couldn't give up on this. "I don't have the time for this. Frieza's going to be here soon!" Guldo smirked as he came up with an idea on the fly to force them to believe him. "As a matter of fact, he might already be here! I sensed a very powerful presence, stronger than my own, off that way!" He pointed off in the direction Nappa had flown. "Send your warriors there if you care about the safety of your people." Based off what Nappa had said about having "fun", he knew that he more likely than not would waste his time killing everyone and would pass fine as a "galactic tyrant."

The elder was still suspicious enough of Guldo he didn't want to leave his village entirely unguarded. After discussing the matter with his warriors in his native tongue to hide the conversation from Guldo, he spoke. "I'll send a man as a scout to see if what you say is true." The warrior went off as promised.

Guldo put his hands on his hips and tapped his biological foot with mild impatience. "Very well, I'll wait." He considered proving his power, but he didn't want to make them even more paranoid about him. He had to try to make these people trust him somehow. "What do you people eat around here? I'm curious to try your finest delicacies and, uh, learn your culture."

They didn't exactly see much harm in allowing Guldo to taste their "finest" food, given Namekians only consumed water and soil. They gave Guldo a small pile of rich soil and a bucket of water. Guldo was used to extravagant foods since joining the Ginyu Force, and he hadn't been this fat back when he'd first joined. The thought of eating dirt appalled not only his taste buds, but the symbolism of it disgusted him also. Guldo couldn't tell if they were insulting him or not with this, but he still needed to learn their language. With great hesitance, he went to try to eat this fine Namekian "delicacy" as a sign of good faith, attempting to wash it down with some water, but ended up choking on it.

A handful of younger Namekians laughed at Guldo and he clenched a fist, but he did his best to hold back his anger. The elder came over and did his best to hold himself back from chuckling. "You don't have to eat that. It's obvious your body needs a different kind of sustenance from ours."

Bored and needing some time to kill, Guldo saw an alien bird flying overhead. He casually used his levitation to slam it down onto the ground. "You people ever tried eating meat? You know how to cook?"

While a handful of people had probably tried it over their lifetimes in Namek's history, it was generally considered a barbaric practice. Regardless, Guldo cooked the meat while waiting for the scout to come back and let some of the Namekians try the food "of his country", which unsurprisingly tasted pretty good to them when they'd spent lifetimes consuming nothing but dirt. This enabled him to gain some popularity with the people of the village as he killed a bit more of the surrounding wildlife for them before the scout finally came back.

Apparently, Nappa, or "Frieza" as the Namekians were now calling him, had mercilessly killed an entire village's people and taken the first Dragonball in the time Guldo had spent gaining their trust. While it wasn't much of a demonstration, slamming down birds flying hundreds of feet in the sky down to the ground in seconds was still pretty intimidating for somebody who couldn't fight and it was obvious he was more powerful than the native warriors of the planet simply with how fast he was able to fly. The village elder went to present Guldo with the village's Dragonball and allowed him to take it with him.

Guldo thanked the elder for the Dragonball even though he could have casually taken it at any time. "Thank you for your trust, it won't go forgotten. Now, you should still probably spread out and hide in case Na-" He cleared his throat. "In case Lord Frieza comes back here. But before you do, I need to know your language so that I can make my wishes."

"Of course. Tell me just what it is you intend to wish for?"

Guldo already had his three wishes in mind by now. "I want my race to have an unlimited lung capacity, then I want immortality, and a muscular eight foot tall body!" He couldn't help but show some excitement.

The elder cocked an eye about the first wish. "How will a bigger lung capacity help you?"

"Let's just say my power is directly tied to my lungs. Even if I'm immortal, I'll need that in order to do enough damage to even have a chance at killing Frieza and saving your planet."

The elder was still paranoid of Guldo because he had the ability to sense the evil in people's hearts. While there were far more evil people in the universe than Guldo, the Namekian's limited exposure to those with dark intentions made Guldo still one of the darkest hearts he'd ever seen if not the darkest. While Guldo had acted nice enough in front of them, there was no telling what he would do with all of that power if it was given to him. He didn't believe that so much power should be given to one person, as even if Guldo was a so-called "hero", power would inevitably corrupt him. Regardless, with Frieza and Nappa out and about destroying their villages, he had little choice but to not allow Guldo some of his people's power.

The elder told Guldo the password for the Dragonballs and translated his first wish as agreed. For the other two, he masked his intentions and intended to get two of his own wishes through Guldo. His first wish was to purge the evil in Guldo's heart, and the second one was to make it impossible for anyone to travel to Namek in the future. Guldo thought he was just going to get his own wishes that he'd already asked for, when in actuality he was going to end up brainwashing himself as he recited words he didn't know the true meaning of.

* * *

After destroying the first village with almost no effort at all, Nappa was goofing off and trying to kill the Namekians in a variety of ways by the time he'd got to the second village. This place didn't have nearly as much civilization as earth for him to rampage through, so he had to get creative before all the bodies were gone. He was getting annoyed at having to carry around his space pod with him everywhere limiting him, to the point he started using it as a battering weapon. At first he started just smashing in on top of his victims, but then he started bowling it forwards and knocking the Namekians down like a set of bowling pins. It didn't take long before his pod was totally covered in blood.

Nappa was having enough fun that he didn't bother to notice that Frieza, Zarbon, and Dodoria had arrived to witness his destruction. The smug smile was promptly wiped off his face when the three of them showed up as his evil laughter turned into a shocked gasp. Frieza wasted no time with directly confronting Nappa. "It was nice enough of you to gather two of the Dragonballs for me, Nappa. However, impersonating me is unforgivable." Given Guldo's lie, some of the Namekians had been referring to Nappa as Frieza.

Nappa was flabbergasted. "I would never try to impersonate you, Lord Frieza!" He didn't see much of any other way out of this than to feign servitude. "I merely came to assist you with attaining the Dragonballs!"

Frieza casually levitated Nappa's Dragonballs next to him, easily ripping them out of his grasp before giving them to Zarbon to carry for him. "Don't insult my intelligence, Nappa. You obviously came here in that rather…Unsightly pod."

Zarbon nodded. "I can confirm he wasn't with the forces we brought with us. He has no reason to be here or to know about the Dragonballs."

Frieza rolled his eyes. "To think a lowly Saiyan would dare try to usurp me. I have no time to deal with trash like you. Come on Zarbon, we're going to the next village. Dodoria, I leave his execution to you." Frieza was in a particularly lazy mood. He didn't even feel like flying around with his ki and was instead casually riding in his hovercar.

Dodoria saluted his emperor. "I'll rejoin you again soon, my lord. One attack is all it'll take to put him out of his misery."

Nappa was at least relieved Frieza and Zarbon were leaving. He was definitely lucky that Frieza didn't just kill him directly. Still, Dodoria was a large obstacle for him to overcome without any help with a power level of 22,000. Dodoria cracked his knuckles as he got ready for battle. "Any last words, ya filthy Saiyan?"

Nappa glared over at his pod. He needed to use it to transform into the Great Ape, but it was a good hundred feet away from him, covered in Namekian blood and body parts. "Don't you get tired of doing menial tasks for Frieza, just killing weaklings?" He said despite the fact killing "weaklings" was just fine and dandy for him personally.

He chuckled. "If you're tryin' to get me to think about taking the wish from Frieza, don't. Of course I thought about it, but I'm nowhere near as dumb as a pea brained Saiyan like you. Frieza would kill me in an instant. You might see me as Frieza's lapdog, but I know on the inside you're just jealous. Being Frieza's #3 guy gets me a lot more perks than you'd think."

Nappa couldn't hold back his anger that well and was visibly annoyed by the insults, but couldn't give in if he didn't want to die. "I'm not talking about betraying Frieza. I can offer you a real fight. If you let me transform, I'll be a more worthy challenge for you. You'll get to have some fun and tap into your true power for once. Aren't you tired of fights you can't possibly lose?"

Dodoria shrugged. "No, not really. Personally, I like winnin'! All I'm hearing is a desperate shell of a man begging for mercy."

Nappa grit his teeth and pointed forward at him, trying to turn it back around on him when he couldn't think of anything else. "Y-You're just scared of my true power!"

Dodoria laughed and threw an arm around Nappa's shoulders faster than he could react. "You crack me up! You know I could kill ya right here, right now." He paused to let his laughter die down. "There's no harm in telling you this before ya kick the bucket, I suppose. I killed countless upstart Saiyans back on Planet Vegeta, and after I was done, Frieza blew up the whole damn planet."

Nappa threw Dodoria's arm off him as he backed off. He had always suspected Frieza might have done it, but it still enraged him to have it finally confirmed all these years later. "What possible reason could he have to do that for?! We'd served him loyally so long, we'd conquered so many planets for him!"

Dodoria knew the reason why but didn't want to tell him. He wanted Nappa to die while thinking he and his people were totally worthless. "Because you're all a bunch of idiots who couldn't take orders, that's why!" He snickered as Nappa's fury only continued to grow. "And where was the mighty general of the Saiyan people all that time while I was killin' every last one of 'em?" He burst out into genuine laughter. "He was busy babysittin' the prince!"

Nappa was seething at this point, he grit his teeth so hard he was practically going to grind them to powder. His rage got the better of him as he lunged forwards to try to tackle Dodoria to the ground. Dodoria casually reacted by uppercutting him a good eighty feet into the air, then flying faster than Nappa was knocked away and punching him back down towards the ground as he did a two handed slam on top of Nappa's giant bald head. This alone was enough to inflict massive damage to Nappa given the huge power level difference between the two, and he was only barely conscious after getting hit in the head.

Dodoria went to finish him by firing a simple, casual ki blast aimed at his heart. Nappa was unable to react in time to get out of the way, but lifted two of his fingers to use his exploding wave technique to block the blast in a gigantic explosion in midair. Dodoria came to land back down on the ground next to Nappa, laughing. "Bit of an overreaction, don't you think? Wasn't that your strongest technique?"

Nappa coughed as dust from the explosion got into his face. "I told you what my strongest technique was. You were too much of a coward to let me use it." He slowly made his way back up to his feet. He could barely think straight after that direct hit to the head. If Dodoria had actually been trying, he could've easily killed him with that attack.

Dodoria put his hands on his hips. "Oh will you give it up already? Your race is worthless! Or should I say, WAS worthless." He laughed. He didn't know what had happened to Vegeta, though it was weird enough seeing Nappa separated from him it wouldn't surprise him if Vegeta had died.

Nappa knew that Frieza had to have a better reason than what Dodoria had said to have blown up his planet. He didn't know exactly what that was, but he wasn't going to accept this. "I bet Frieza blew up our planet because he was afraid of our transformation!"

Dodoria knew about the legend of the Super Saiyan, but Nappa hadn't and was still only talking about his Great Ape form. Dodoria thought Nappa might be deluded enough to think he was the legendary warrior. When he already knew Vegeta was much more powerful than Nappa, he knew that it would undoubtedly be impossible. "Fine, I give. Let's see your AMAZING transformation." He kept chuckling.

Nappa was relieved he was finally getting the chance to transform and hastily made his way over to his pod. "Alright, just give me a minute here..."

When Nappa didn't just immediately power up on the spot, Dodoria was suspicious and suspected he might be trying to take the chance to flee. He was only further confused when he opened up his pod. He laughed even harder to the point he was on the verge of tears. "All of that was just so you could get the chance to run?! Even IF you got into the pod, I'd just blast it outta the sky without even thinking about it!"

Nappa did his best to ignore him as he fiddled about with it. "I'm not running! I told you, just let me get this working properly…" Nappa was getting frantic now when it appeared that his pod wasn't working. The pod had taken too much damage to be functional because he'd abused it too much as a weapon against the Namekians, and was now nothing more than a worthless hunk of metal. "Why isn't it working?! Useless piece of junk!" He kicked it in anger as if that would magically make it work somehow.

Dodoria pat Nappa on the back sarcastically as his laughter died down into a chuckle. "There there, it's alright. I'll help you get it working again." He kicked Nappa into the pod and slammed the door on him. "How's about a one way trip straight back to Planet Vegeta? I'm gonna reunite you with all those worthless Saiyans I killed!" He picked up the pod with a single hand and spun his arm around to build up momentum, then threw it as high up into the air as he could manage. He charged up his signature mouth beam before firing it straight up after the pod in order to detonate it with Nappa still inside, going for a flashy execution.

Inside the pod, Nappa attempted to have the pod door open through the pod's controls, but the pod was so damaged by now that the controls weren't responding at all. He had to blast the door open and kick it off its hinges before just barely leaping out of the pod's interior in time to evade Dodoria's attack. In the pod's wreckage, a small amount of the radiation needed for the transformation was dispersed into the air around it, causing Nappa to begin the process. While he wouldn't be able to emit those waves to trigger it again, he was more than happy to get it one last time.

Dodoria couldn't make out everything at first, though had clearly seen Nappa had escaped the pod before it had become his tombstone. He flew up next to Nappa and could see him slowly begin to increase in size as his fur grew out. Dodoria was relieved when it turned out Nappa's transformation was just the common Great Ape Form – he'd killed plenty of Great Apes with power levels that barely exceeded 10,000 and were slow as molasses. He couldn't help but keep laughing at Nappa. "This is what you were bragging about? Just turning into a dumb monkey?" He turned on his scouter out of curiosity, and his laughter slowly stopped as Nappa's power level didn't stop rising throughout the transformation. Once it had surpassed his own power level, Dodoria took it seriously and attempted to interrupt him. He knocked him out of the sky and into the dirt, firing a constant barrage of ki blasts aimed at his head that were strong enough to destroy mountains. Dodoria knew he didn't have any time to prepare a bigger attack, as he needed to hit Nappa while he was still vulnerable, as it was obvious his usual defensive aura of ki wasn't up in the middle of the transformation. This caused Nappa to take heavy damage before he finished the process as he collapsed onto the ground with a massive thud in his new gigantic body.

Nappa was still suffering from a lot of injuries to the head, still retaining the damage he'd taken in his regular form in addition to those blasts Dodoria had thrown at him in the middle of the transformation. While he was a Saiyan elite and normally had complete power over the Great Ape, entering it while having such heavy damage already made Nappa struggle to focus as he had to fight against the beast's primal instincts as he carelessly swatted about at Dodoria, letting out an animalistic roar. While the difference in speed between Dodoria and Great Ape Nappa wasn't nearly as great as it was between Burter and the Saiyan, Nappa was predictable enough in this state that it may as well have been. Dodoria took the chance to taunt him. "You had a better shot of hitting me normally!" He chuckled. "Ya could at least try to hit me, y'know."

Nappa held onto his head and desperately attempted to regain control over himself as he let out another roar of pain. Having played an integral part in the destruction of Planet Vegeta, Dodoria was fully aware of the Saiyans' weakness, even if he hadn't really had to make use of it before. It was obvious Nappa wasn't fully in control given he hadn't bothered to wrap his tail around his waist. While Nappa was unfocused, Dodoria got behind Nappa and prepared to use his charged mouth beam to blow the tail up into several pieces.

Just when Dodoria thought Nappa was too dimwitted and slow to react, Nappa regained his sentience as he grabbed Dodoria with his tail, wrapping it around him before he threw him between his legs in front of him. Nappa lifted up a leg in preparation to stomp down on Dodoria as he slid past him. Dodoria had to use his mouth beam to propel himself through the air more quickly to avoid getting stomped, which would probably be fatal. The beam went into Nappa's knee fairly harmlessly, just singing and disintegrating a bit of Nappa's ape fur. After that, Nappa went to wrap his tail around his waist as he kept it in his base form again, not wanting his weak spot to take up quite so much space. "Why don't you try taking me head on? I thought we Saiyans were worthless!"

Dodoria was shocked that he'd come that close to dying, but he wasn't going to show that. If he had to report that he'd somehow lost to Nappa, things weren't going to look good for him. Still, he managed to keep up his air of confidence. "You still haven't damaged me."

"Because unlike you, one hit is all I'm gonna need!"

"So? All I need is one good hit to your tail."

Nappa couldn't come up with much in the way of a retort to that and just went to start picking up the Namekian houses to throw at Dodoria as projectiles. His ki manipulation in this form wasn't as strong outside of his mouth beam, so this was the best he could do for "quick" projectiles. Rather than dodging them, Dodoria just blasted his way through the insides of the shoddily made homes as he again attempted to get behind Nappa while he was busy. It turned out that Nappa wrapping his tail around himself was a mistake, as now he had nothing to properly defend himself with from behind and it was rather difficult for him to turn around. Dodoria latched onto the back of Nappa's armor as he fired a successive series of ki blasts aimed at his tail, causing him a great deal of pain, too much to be able to use his tail to attack. Lacking much of an alternative, Nappa leapt back to try to crush Dodoria against his back on the ground, though that attack was so telegraphed Dodoria got plenty more shots in before Nappa fell over.

As Dodoria was coming out from under Nappa's body, Vegeta came blasting in at full speed to grab Dodoria from behind by the arms. Vegeta was only in his ordinary base form and had lost his tail on Earth, so it was baffling to Dodoria why he couldn't casually break out of Vegeta's grip. It would've been easy for Dodoria to see Vegeta coming, but Nappa's towering figure had managed to hide him from view. Dodoria scoffed at him. "You Saiyans are a lot of cowardly, dirty fighters. Hidden transformations, two on ones, sneak attacks…You have to resort to these tactics to make up for your pitiful strength!"

Vegeta painfully kneed Dodoria in the back. "And you're going to tell me you bootlicker Planet Trade soldiers are honorable?"

While in a lot more pain than he expected from that attack, Dodoria wasn't going to go down just yet. He charged a ki blast in his hands and fired it back at Vegeta, blasting him away and enabling him to try to escape. He attempted to go under Nappa's legs and use the big ape's body to block off Vegeta from attacking him, but Nappa was able to grab Dodoria with his tail for the second time. While the tail was the Great Ape's biggest weakness, the extensive training Saiyan Elites had to undergo with it to overcome those weaknesses made it one of their fastest attacks. Nappa quickly threw Dodoria away before he could do any more serious damage to his tail, directly towards an incoming Vegeta. Vegeta was so strong that with his newfound power and the momentum Dodoria had from being thrown, the punch was powerful enough that it went right through Dodoria's body, "impaling" the fat purple alien on his fist. Vegeta retracted his fist as Dodoria's body lifelessly fell to the ground, then fired his Galick Gun energy beam straight at him to disintegrate his corpse.

Nappa didn't know how Vegeta could hurt Dodoria without turning Great Ape. He still hated him for his attempted betrayal after they'd known each other for so long. "Didn't think I'd be seeing you here again so soon." Knowing that he might have to fight Vegeta as well, he did his best to keep up his tough guy act, chuckling. "For all your bragging, I've still got my tail and you don't. How did you even manage to lose it?"

Vegeta angrily retorted at him. "How did you manage to lose so badly to Kakarot that I nearly incinerated your carcass?!" He folded his arms and looked the other way. "If you must know, there was an old man who nearly trapped me inside of a jar."

Nappa laughed harder at him. "Trapped in a jar in Great Ape form?"

"It shrunk me down to fit inside through some black voodoo magic! I was so big it was nearly impossible to avoid. I had to cut off my own tail to deform quickly enough to not get trapped for eternity in that old geezer's basement."

Nappa didn't stop laughing, which made Vegeta wish he didn't bother giving Nappa the luxury of explaining his current predicament. "You only had to fight weaklings, whereas I had to take on Kakarot and his teacher." He quickly changed the topic. "Regardless, it seems you aren't quite as useless as I'd once thought. You've…Slightly improved since our time on earth. It's nothing compared to the power boost I got, but it's enough you'll be helpful to me here when you still have your tail."

Nappa angrily stomped forwards and yelled down at Vegeta. "I'm not just a tool to be 'used' by you, asshole! What, are you just gonna throw me away again once I stop being useful?! Back down on earth, you went on and ON about your father. Guess what? Unlike you, your father actually cared about his race! He wouldn't have killed one of the only remaining Saiyans!"

Vegeta kept a totally straight face and just ignored Nappa. "Calm down, you imbecile! Did you forget where we are and what form you're in? Frieza can probably hear you from the other end of the planet! Turn back to your regular form already!"

Nappa thought about that for a second before realizing that was probably a bad idea. "Yeah, uh, about that. Dodoria kind of ended up destroying my pod. If I turn back, I won't be able to go Great Ape again." He chose to omit the part where he'd stupidly broke it beforehand.

"Heh, even with a difference of 30,000 between your power level and his, Dodoria managed to cripple you this badly? He'd of probably killed you if I hadn't shown up."

Nappa kept shouting. "Hey now, I was doing just fine before you showed up! All I needed was one good hit! All the damage I took was before I transformed!"

Vegeta angrily looked from side to side as he started scanning with his scouter, making sure nobody was coming in on their conversation Nappa was broadcasting for miles. "Yes, I'm sure…Look, Nappa. Let me put this into terms your tiny brain can understand. You wasted the last Planet Vegeta space pod besides mine. Without me, you're stuck walking around like that forever and will inevitably attract Frieza's attention. That form is powerful and all, but you can't even fly. With me, I can casually make you as many fake moons as you want to switch back and forth."

Nappa still wasn't totally sold, as he was still very bitter about the betrayal and didn't like how much Vegeta was talking down to him. "How can you expect me to trust you?"

"Do you intend to do this entirely by yourself? I don't see Guldo around here anywhere. I'd assumed that disgusting green turd had died."

"I'll have you know he's very much alive, he's probably gathered half the Dragonballs by now!"

Vegeta's smugness knew no bounds as he chuckled, having far from a high opinion of Guldo. "If you remember, he ran like a coward from me back on Earth."

"That was when you had a tail!"

"And that was before I got my power boost. Look, you need to decide now, Nappa. I'm not going to stick around here arguing with you while you lure Frieza straight to us."

Nappa hesitated. He really loathed Vegeta for what he'd done to him and definitely didn't want to betray Guldo, but he knew he had a point given he couldn't survive another encounter like the one with Dodoria. He decided to align himself with Vegeta for now and to try to betray him when the time was right, as he knew Vegeta was inevitably planning the same thing anyway. He went to deform as he let out a sigh. "Guess it's back to you and me again."

While Nappa was quite injured from that battle, Vegeta had no intention of giving him any time to heal his wounds as he went to fly off into the distance, extremely impatient. "Finally. Let's move. Your idiocy has wasted enough of our time already."

Nappa went to fly up alongside him. He didn't bother retorting back to him at this point, as he knew in his regular form Vegeta could easily take him out if he wanted to. Vegeta folded his arms as he turned to glare at him. "Well, you obviously got here before I did. Don't just sit there. Tell me what you've seen."

"Dodoria claims that he and Frieza killed all of Planet Vegeta's inhabitants and blew up the planet. It didn't just vanish in some mysterious explosion." Nappa wondered if hearing that would even have an effect on Vegeta at this point.

"Obviously. Who else could've done it? I'd put one and two together back when I was a child, Nappa. Are you telling me you were so incredibly stupid you hadn't figured that out already?"

Nappa was getting seriously fed up with Vegeta at this point. "Of course I thought that's what probably had happened! Doesn't mean it's not a big deal to have one of those guys finally come out and say it. We're talking about the destruction of our planet, Vegeta. Don't you think you should care?!"

Even now, Vegeta refused to give Nappa anything. "I'd barely spent any time on my home planet. I was off conquering planets for Frieza at what, age five? That's all I've really known. The closest thing I have to a home is that stupid space pod."

Nappa considered saying something supportive, but at this point, he was well past the point of caring. He was disgusted that Vegeta had so little respect for the planet that he carried the namesake of. After a long period of awkward silence, he added in one last thing. "Maybe when I wish for the planet to come back you'll change your mind."

* * *

 _Many thanks to the continued support from my readers!_


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